His wife to serve 2 years in jail for helping him acquire, conceal illegal wealth

The court also handed down two years’ imprisonment to Saiful’s wife Zakia Islam Anu for assisting her husband in acquiring the illegal wealth.

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) filed two cases against the duo in June and September of 2010 with Ramna Police Station, accusing them of acquiring illegal wealth worth over Tk 2.77 crore and concealing wealth statement of Tk 38.55 lakh from the commission.

After cross-examining 23 witnesses placed by the prosecution and a fully-fledged trial, Judge Shaikh Nazmul Alam of the Special Judge Court-4 yesterday pronounced the verdict.

In the verdict, the court also fined Saiful Tk 6.5 lakh, in default of which, he will have to suffer two-and-a-half-year more in prison.

Besides, the court fined Zakia Tk 1 lakh, in default of which she will have to suffer three-month more in prison.

After the placing the verdict, the court cancelled the duo’s bail and sent them to prison with conviction warrant to serve jail term.

To add to this, the court directed the concerned authorities to confiscate wealth of the duo that include 186.25 decimals of land in Dhaka’s Rampura and Narayanganj’s Bandar upazila, a flat in Dhaka’s Gulshan and a deposit of Tk 25,000 with Gulshan branch of Standard Chartered Bank.

According to prosecution, Saiful acquired the illegal wealth during his deployment at different police stations across the country and his wife assisted him to do so.

On August 4, 2009, the ACC served a notice asking Saiful to submit his and his family members’ wealth statement.

Receiving the notice, Saiful submitted a wealth statement of Tk 52,423,350 on September 29 the same year.

During investigation, the ACC found that the ex-OC concealed wealth from the statement.

On top of that, the couple set up two filling stations, a Chinese restaurant and bought a microbus with the illegal money, the ACC added.